


The Imperial March

by frogeity



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Implied Character Death, Implied Relationships, Murder, Political upheaval, Politics, Revolution, assassination plots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-27
Updated: 2012-12-27
Packaged: 2017-11-22 16:28:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/611856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frogeity/pseuds/frogeity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were twelve heiresses before you, and when you were five Eridan told you she used their bones to build her throne.</p><p>Failures didn't deserve a legacy. You will not be a failure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Imperial March

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Papipalooka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Papipalooka/gifts).



"The king is dead. Long live the king." - Troll Elvis Presley (The King, later executed)

\------------

_She'd said to you, with blood on her face, her face so like your face- they won't yield, you aren't strong enough to defeat me you aren't strong enough to hold them-_

_They'd screamed in your ears, words you understood somewhere in your bones, salt and darkness and the cold ocean depths where light never touched, crooned for the blood of the scion that'd left them for the stars and failed to take them along, blood in your ears but more in hers because they were a part of you, and you'd said-_

\------------

There were twelve heiresses before you, and when you were five Eridan told you she used their bones to build her throne. You didn't believe him then, and you didn't believe him up until the moment you came to claim it for your own with a trident still dripping with your tyrian blood where she split you open across the shoulder. It'll heal, you think, you knew you wouldn't get away unscathed. But the rip somewhere in your bloodpusher when you see all those little bones gilded in gold on her seat, _your_ seat- that won't scar as easily as skin.

\------------

The office of the Empress lies in three things- throne, trident, and blood. No one could ever fail to mistake that; your predecessor had a fondness for stamping her color on literally everything she touched, as was her right, and she did it with the flashy showiness of a magpie. Everything she touched had to gleam, had to be visibly _hers_. She built her seat out of the bones of her enemies and her descendants, over and over again, until the throne is a weird composite of arching horns and monstrous skulls covered in gold leaf. Conquered alien queens and kings. Generals too stupid to realize the Empress never lost, never could be dethroned, until there was you. Revolutionaries who reached too high. Princesses who weren't good enough. It's their blood she let sink into her trident, so that the prongs at both ends are stained in tyrian. The weapon to raise or take down the Empire. It's not the way you would have chosen, but everything that was hers is now yours, and you're not fool enough to throw out the symbols of your new office so quickly. Not while they can still be of use to you.

So you can't get rid of the throne. You can't get rid of the trident, either; it's ceremonial, symbolic, you took it from her cold dead hands and it marks you as her successor where none of your twelve predecessors could succeed. They fought her fair, and you didn't, and that's why you won. No one could ever fight her fairly and win. No one could afford for another heiress to fight her fairly and fail, and you had one advantage that no one before you had ever had. When push came to shove, Gl'bgolyb had sided with you, and the scales had tipped in your favor.

It's not the way you pictured it.

And you had been picturing it for a long time! You knew you would be the one to bring her down sure as you knew how to breathe, no matter how hard it was going to be, and it was going to be pretty freaking hard. You didn't need Eridan to tell you that, but he did so at least once a sweep, just to make sure you remembered it, turning to you with his face for once serious and mature and lacking the perpetual expression he was starting to get that the whole world smelled of dung, and he'd say-

"This is gonna be hard as shit, Fef, if you're sure-" and every time you'd pat his shoulder and so "Shore I'm sure, somebody's got to do it" and that somebody was you.

And now it's you facing down the entire Imperial court hoping they'll fall in nicely, knowing it's not going to be that easy and you don't even have Eridan at your side for emergency backup in case everything goes to hell in a handbasket while you sit in your new throne. You can't afford to look like you need anybody's help holding you there, that you need anything but the legitimacy of your tyrian color dripping onto the bones and blood stains of the Empress' seat, waiting for the bureaucracy to do what they ought, and bend the knee to you. 

It's uncomfortable as hell.

\------------

The seadwellers come first.

The first night, when your wounds are still fresh, and you hadn't expected them so soon. But of course the news was bound to reach them first; highest of the high, closest to the throne, they couldn't fail to notice the seachange. You'd had a network of spies and informants and rebels scattered all across the hemospectrum, but only you and Eridan had come from the ocean. You couldn't risk trusting any of your cohort, and you weren't stupid enough to try and bribe a general, not even one who might have had legitimate cause to want to see the Empress replaced. Them, you'd thought, they'd be the first or last ones to yield. It doesn't necessarily bode well that they're the first. They serve the Empress, they report directly to her; without her orders, they have nothing. They were the closest to your ancestor, the second tier of her Empire, and they could make or break yours.

You're tired, you just want to clean up, but you can't afford not to meet with them.

He's not your moirail anymore, but you can't help feeling proud of Eridan when he walks in with his back full of steel and his rifle in his hands at the head of a small group of seadwellers even more lavishly dressed than him, if not as rich in purple. The tallest of them all, right on Eridan's heels, in a delicate shade of orchid- Interstellar Fleet Admiral Tarkin himself.

Eridan looks like he's mad enough to chew glass, just to spit it in someone's face, and you tighten your grip on your new trident in anticipation.

"Hail to the Empress of All Alternia and the Galactic Abyss-" he begins, but the Admiral cuts in front of him to sink to his knee in a smooth bow.

"Your Majestic Tyranny," he says smoothly, but Eridan's face looks like thunder and you're gripping your trident hard enough that a lesser weapon would give beneath your strength. Of course he wouldn't make this easy; he's already disrespected your most powerful political ally, the descendent of the Orphaner himself, and if he can't even wait to let himself be properly announced he certainly doesn't respect you.

That's not even a R-EELY good title, but you'd have been even more disrespected if he referred to you as Her Imperious Condescension.

She never gave up fish puns; you wonder if you'll have to, to be taken seriously.

"Admiral," you say, pleased with the way your voice doesn't even shake. When she spoke to you she sounded warm, amused; you sound cold as the abyssal depths where your lusus lived and raised you. "Do you have somefin to say to me?" Because if he's not going to be polite neither are you, two can play at that game. You already know not to trust him, but you need him, if he's willing to at least to pretend to throw his support in, and he knows that. He's going to hold that over you, and you're going to have to deal with that somehow, but you are tired and you just came this close to dying and if you try wiping out every single member of the elite military echelons you are going to have no navy no army no nothing and everything is going to crumble under you like a sand castle beneath the first rush of the tide.

"I am here to swear allegiance to the new Empress," he says, with all his teeth on display, and you can feel the first of many headaches starting to grow behind your eyes.

\------------

You met your fellow rebels the way you meet everyone else- through each other. Through Eridan, Vriska; through Vriska, her neighbor Equius, Terezi her not-kismesis, Kanaya her moirail; through Equius, Nepeta his moirail; through Kanaya, her friend Karkat, his friends Gamzee and Sollux, and through Sollux his moirail, Aradia. The only thing you all have in common is that you know each other, but that's enough for you to think they're enough to start building an army for your rebellion, if you can talk them around to your side. Every one of them has something to gain from the reforms you want to pass, and every one of them offers something that you lack, to build up a stable base. One agent for each color in the hemospectrum, and an off-spectrum mutant who can be the symbol of your reform.

They believe you can be better. They believe you can make the Empire different. Compassionate. Safe.

CG: SO YOU'RE COMMITTED TO GOING THROUGH WITH THIS.  
CG: RIGHT NOW.  
CG: RELATIVELY SPEAKING.  
CC: We reelly don't )(ave much c)(oice anymore Krabsnack 38(  
CC: T)(is is the only way I can t)(ink of to get rid of )(--ER wit)(out risking everyone's safety w)(lie making sure the movement won't die if I )(appen to fail.  
CC: The longer I wait t)(e more we risk )(er coming after US.  
CC: We can afford to lose me if it comes to t)(at.  
CC: We can't afford for )(er to wipe out -EV--ERYON-E because I didn't feel ready to face )(er.  
CC: But I don't think we need to worry about t)(at.  
CC: Because I am not going to fail!  
CC: And everyt)(ing will be JUST FIN-----E!  
CC: Glub glub glub.  
CG: OK I CONCEDE THAT WITH ALL OTHER ALTERNATIVES INVOLVING THE HIGH PROBABILITY OF ONE OR ALL OF US GETTING SKEWERED ON SIGHT THIS PROVIDES THE HIGHEST CHANCE OF SUCCESS WITH THE SMALLEST CHANCE OF CASUALTIES.  
CG: LIKE MAYBE THREE PERCENT VERSUS ZERO?  
CG: I CAN ADMIT THAT.  
CG: I CAN ALSO CONCEDE THAT GIVEN THE GENERAL UNDERHANDEDNESS OF OUR ENTIRE PSYCHOTIC SPECIES THAT THIS SHOULD NOT COME AS AN UNEXPECTED MANEUVER AND THE WHOLE GENERAL METHODS OF ASCENSION IS GENERALLY RIGGED FOR YOUR FAILURE.  
CG: BUT I ALSO WOULD LIKE TO POINT OUT THAT THIS HAS A HIGH CHANCE OF BACKFIRING ON ALL OF US IF YOU CANT GET THE BULGEMUNCHING SHITSTAINS TO BACK YOU ON THIS  
CG: THE EMPIRE WITHOUT A LEADER IS GOING TO BE EVEN WORSE.  
CG: EVERYTHING WE WORKED FOR WILL JUST GO STRAIGHT DOWN THE CRAPPER, GOOD BYE EQUALITY, GOOD BYE ANY HOPE FOR LIVING OUT THE NEXT SWEEP.  
CC: Karkrab...  
CC: AR--E YOU DOUBTING M---E??  
CG: NO.  
CG: FUCK NO.  
CG: I KNOW YOU CAN KILL HER.  
CG: I JUST DONT IF ANY OF US ARE READY FOR WHATS GOING TO COME AFTER.  
CG: INCLUDING YOU.

\------------

You'd had some hope that when this whole thing was carried off- if it was carried off- that people would be grateful for what you'd done. Nobody liked your ancestor! She was unpredictable and untrustworthy and tempestuous and likely to kill anybody as soon as they so much as pissed her off. She censored anything she didn't like and banned things that didn't make sense and imposed a campaign of eugenics that backfired on your ENTIRE SPECIES and she'd held power for thousands and thousands of sweeps making everyone's lives miserable. Somebody, somewhere, had to be happy that you had taken over just because you weren't her.

You are pretty sure you have never been so wrong in your entire life, and you were moirails with Eridan Ampora for at least three sweeps.

The first two perigees, you lose one third of the officers. Ships go out on patrol and never come back, and when you send out people after them they come back empty. Or so Admiral Tarkin tells you, and you know he's lying. He's going to let you sink yourself, and let the fact that you can't keep people from defecting or adequately punish them run you into the ground. 

Paperwork goes missing. Sollux rips apart every file he can get his hands on and turns the whole system upside down, so you can at least know what somebody's trying to hide. Shipment invoices, employment records, military orders and reports being hidden from you, it's a resistance within a resistance. The name isn't always the same, on every paper, corrupted and wiped out and threaded through dummy officers who don't exist. But Sollux can track down the origin of anything and everything, and somehow or another, they all trace back to a small group of generals, the ones who'd come with Tarkin the first night. Your first traitors.

One of those orders nearly gets Karkat and Kanaya killed, and you consolidate your forces, order everyone back to stay around you. Much as you'd like to keep them safe, away from the inevitable attempts at assassination in court, you can't- you can't risk what might happen, without you to watch over them.

But it's more disappointing that it's the lowbloods who really seem to go out of their way to be openly disdainful of your new rule. You're pretty sure you're supposed to have a secretary, and you made sure you didn't keep the Condesce's; she's sitting in a cell somewhere, under guard until you figure out what you want to do with her. What you have instead are a series of barely polite greenbloods constantly misplacing the personnel files you ask for, the missives you order sent to your generals, the calls for meetings. Each time they offer apologies. Each time you fire them, and call for a new one, and after a week the same thing starts happening over again.

Aradia eventually takes over the paperwork, as a favor to you. That way, you at least know your messages are being sent; if no one shows, you can cross off another name on your list of people you wanted on your side. And if something isn't brought to you, it's another thing for Sollux to track down through the system.

"What are you going to do about it?" she asks you. You know you have to do _something_ , but you also have meetings to get to, edicts to pass that you can't properly enforce, just yet, a suspension on the culling laws to allow you to reinvestigate the state of the Empire's assets to your satisfaction. She's got a black eye, today, and she reported this evening that there's an unpleasant blue stain on the wall outside your office from the offender. You know she can take care of herself, but it makes your insides and your bloodpusher burn all the same. You know they think you're paling her, that you picked her for this job because you're a blood traitor and you've got a thing for slumming it with landdwellers and livestock. So many of your prime leaders are nothing more than peasants. It makes sense to them, and you try not to let it get to you.

"Somefin," you tell her, trying to grin. But when she pats your shoulder and heads off to battle her way into the offices of the people who hate you, putting herself at risk for you, there seems like no option at all.

\------------

When you were seven you made a list of all the things you wanted to accomplish.

IT-EM NUMB-ER ON-E: ABOLISH OR R-ED-EFIN-E CULLING FOR THE BETTA.  
IT-EM NUMB-ER TWO: PROMOT-E EQUALITY  
IT-EM NUMB-ER T)(R-EE: CONVINC-E P--EOPL--E LIK-E -----ERIDAN THAT W-E S)(OULD NOT WIP-E OUT THE LANDDW-ELL-ERS.  
** ADD-ENDUM TO NUMB-ER T)(R-EE: FIGUR-E OUT )(OW TO PROMOT-E LONG T-ERM C)(ANG-E IN CULTURAL -EXP-ECTATIONS FOR T)(-E )(IG)(BLOODS OR T)(IS WILL NOT WORK!  
IT-EM NUMB-ER FOUR: PROTECT MY FRI-ENDS.  
IT-EM NUMB-ER FIV-E: TRY TO B-E A GOOD AND B-EN-EFIC---ENT ----EMPR------ESS!  
** ADD-ENDUM TO NUMB-ER FIV-E: TRY TO SOLV-E PROBL-EMS WIT)(OUT KILLING ANYBODY.

IT-EM NUMB-ER SIX: TRY NOT TO DI----E.

\------------

Eridan thinks you should throw the dissenters to Gl'bgolyb.

"We got to keep feedin' her somehow," he argues. You smack him, and tell him to S)(UT THE )(-ELL UP, but you know eventually this is going to be a problem. Your Mom promised you that she would be ok, for awhile, while you went off to take care of all this, promised to help you if in turn you would give her her first daughter's body. Whatever she's doing down there, you don't want to know. Her sadness is hers and hers alone, and though sometimes you worry she'll never want to see you again you know she never ceased to love the Condesce no matter how many tyrian princesses under her care she killed. You and she will be all right.

It's a problem you'll have to conquer another day, when you bring your court to heel. Tarkin's in front of your throne reporting new problems every day and you don't have enough loyal officers to fix everything, and he smiles every time you have to adjourn to figure out what to do now. Equius and Nepeta, Vriska and Tavros, your front line soldiers, they can't be everywhere. Terezi has more cases to prosecute than she knows what to do with. Sollux hasn't slept in nearly two weeks. The mountain of paperwork on Aradia's desk grows and grows and grows, and the two of you are up well into the hours of the day trying to figure out what needs your attention most, who you can spare, who you need to replace as soon as possible.

Sometimes you let yourself fantasize about what it would be like to throw them to Gl'bgolyb, though. It's kind of tempting, especially when Aradia falls asleep across her desk or against your shoulder, overworked, and you think you could spare her and everyone else so much heartache if you just got rid of them. One little push, and they would all go away.

To be replaced with a set of new problems. You know better than that.

\------------

CA: fef  
CA: fef are you there  
CA: fef i fuckin need you could you stop glubbin around and pay me some attention for once in our livves  
CC: aug)(  
CC: W)(at is it, --ERIDAN, t)(at is so important it cannot wait for five minutes wit)(out you floundering around?  
CA: so wwhen wwe take over the empire do you think you can make me fleet admiral  
CA: i mean not right awway but maybe in a swweep or something  
CC: Not t)(is again.  
CA: wwhat do you mean not this again  
CA: yes this again i got to knoww what i should be preparin for dowwn the line kans gonna get flooded wwith requests and i need to put in mine early if i fuckin wwant it on time  
CC: Seariously?  
CC: Glub glub glub! 38|  
CC: W--E WILL S------EE OK?

 

GA: When You Are Empress  
GA: Will You Please Pass An Imperial Edict Banning Eridan From Pestering Me About His Clothes He Does Not Even Need Them Yet  
GA: I Am Not Going To Drop Everything Just Because He Feels A Need To Dictate To Me What Kind Cut And Color His Underwear Will Have To Be To Match His Dress Uniform  
CC: )(ee )(ee!  
CC: DON------E!  
GA: Thank You  
GA: All Hail Our Benevolent Soon To Be New Overlord

 

GC: OH GR34T 4ND T3RR1BL3 3MPR3SS TO B3  
GC: YOUR LOWLY S3RV3NT WOULD L1K3 TO B3G A BOON OF YOU >:]  
CC: T)(e --EMPR---ESS TO B------E says s)(e will )(ear t)(is request.  
CC: W)(at's up?  
GC: WH3N YOU G3T YOUR F1RST B4TCH OF TR41TORS  
GC: W1LL YOU 4LLOW M3 TO HON3 MY SK1LLS ON TH3M?  
GC: TH1S M4Y B3 TH3 ON3 4ND ONLY T1M3 1 W1LL 3V3R G3T TO WORK ON SO M4NY D1V3RS3 TR34SON C4S3S AND 1 WOULD L1K3 TO T4K3 TH1S R4R3 4ND UN1QU3 OPPORTUN1TY TO 3NJOY MYS3LF B3FOR3 W3 G3T TH3 L1K3S OF  
GC: BLUH BLUH ST34L1NG FROM OFF1C14L MUN1T1ONS STOR3S  
GC: TR34SON TO TH3 3MP1R3!  
CC: W------ELL  
CC: As it so )(appens…  
GC: >:O  
GC: DO NOT K33P M3 IN SUSP3NS3 1 B3G OF YOU  
CC: Glub glub glub!  
CC: As it so )(appens, I was already planning on asking you!  
CC: Terezi Pyrope, will you )(unt down my enemies for me, even unto t)(e ----ENDS OF T)(-E UNIV----ERS-E?  
GC: YOUR D3L1C1OUS B3RRY 1MP3R14L M4J3STY  
GC: 1 WOULD B3 HONOR3D  
CC: )(-EE )(-EE.  
CC: Good!  
CC: T)(oug)( I t)(ink-  
CC: Or I )(ope, rat)(er, that t)(ere will not be too many traitors to worry about.  
CC: We are doing a good t)(ing!  
CC: And we are not even being t)(at subtle about it, eit)(er.  
GC: 1 HOP3 SO TOO  
GC: 1 KNOW YOU W4NT TO DO B3TT3R!  
GC: 4ND 1 TH1NK YOU W1LL  
GC: BUT TROLLS 4R3 NOT V3RY GOOD 4T CH4NG3 >:[  
CC: T)(ey will see eventually.  
CC: T)(ey )(ave to.  
CC: T)(is is t)(e only way for us to get better, as a people.  
CC: One way or another t)(ey will just )(ave to accept that!   
CC: And me.  
GC: OH 1 KNOW  
GC: 1 DONT DOUBT 1T 4T 4LL  
GC: 1T 1S JUST 4 M4TT3R OF WH3N  
GC: 4ND HOW

\------------

You know you have some factions simply because they are loyal to the Empire, not to the _Empress_. The legislacerators, and in theory the subjuggulators, who exist to keep the whole thing functioning whether or not the head is cut off, who meddle not in these kind of politics. In theory, anyway. So when you don't hear from the Subjuggulators as the weeks go by, it begins to worry you. Gamzee tells you nothing's going down, they're just sitting on their asses trying to figure out which way the wind is blowing. It's not reassuring.

But in the end, the Grand Highblood sends a messenger to you saying he is too old to journey so far as the throne room to offer his righteous congratulations on the appointment of a bitchin' specimen of royal glory and Aradia can't even get the words out without laughing. So you have to message Gamzee right away to ask if he is ACTUALLY S-EARIOUS about this, which gets you a long rambling message in return that says a lot about bitchtits and nothing about whether or not you should expect to be walking into a trap. You kick the trashcan over and then feel stupid for taking out your irritation on it; it seems too close to something that SHE would do, and you are not going to be like her, never, ever, ever, no matter what anybody says or how terribly frustrating it gets. It's just that you've had a headache that won't go away, ever since the night you killed her, and your ass hurts all the time from that stupid chair, but those are excuses and if nothing is going the way you wanted it to you will just have to work harder than ever to make them see it your way.

In a way, though, it's a relief. You hadn't heard from the Subjuggulators, the backbones of the enforcement of the Empire, and you'd known they wouldn't like any of the reforms you were trying to pass, even though supposedly they owe allegiance to nothing but the throne, with no political whim or will of their own. Eridan says that's a load of stinkin' shit, and you're inclined to agree; but at least they're not ignoring you anymore.

You take Aradia with you. They won't even deign to notice her existence, and two heads are better than one for recalling what was said. You might want another perspective. And if they go for her first, you might want a distraction to escape.

And then you hate that you thought that, and try to convince yourself that you thought instead that if they go for _you_ first at least someone might have a chance to escape and warn the others.

Turns out it's true, though- he's old and vast as a mountain, it seems, towering over you and Aradia when you storm in to face him. You suspect your ancestor never would have deigned to come to him, but he's hooked up to wires feeding indigo into his veins and the contents of packets that hold you don't know what, and you always meant to be beneficent, benevolent towards the infirm. Which he definitely is.

You know enough not to say that to his face, though, when you stare him down. 

What you say instead is probably not much better.

"I could have made you come to me instead." As though he needs to be reminded. _She_ would have made him do it, but you're not her, and coming from your mouth it sounds stupidly petulant. You should have thought of something better.

"You could have," he agrees, his voice creaking like an old gate rusted through. He's _really old_ , and your ancestor didn't do a damn thing to help him along, you think, even though she used him all up, and if he goes after she goes everything really will fall into chaos. Not even instating Gamzee to his seat would patch that hole. "You're the spitting image and you're about as motherfuckin' subtle as her, if unnecessarily wordy."

Aradia exhales, long and slow at your side; you tighten your grip on your inherited trident, trying not to look at the tyrian blood that stains the prongs, hers and yours and all the ones before you, and you grit your teeth before you say something more.

"Did you request this meeting just to compare us, or do you actually have a porpoise for wanting to talk?" He's making you stand on attention, he's testing you, and you refuse to bend to his whims. But if he's not called to offer you his support, or to acknowledge you as Empress-

\- well, you'd better start moving people out, before they come after you.

He settles back in his chair, striped with a rainbow of colors, rust and violet among them, and you wish you could push Aradia behind you properly. You wish you had brought Eridan, that it wouldn't look like a distrusting and desperately weak gesture. 

"Your blood might be righteous and royal," he says, his grin starting to grow on his pale painted face, the makeup cracking at the corners of his mouth. "And we hold the blood as motherfucking divine, but even the righteous must fall in their turn."

You have no idea what this means. Aradia goes tense at your side

"EXCUSE ME?" you say, your voice getting dangerously loud. "I don't think I heard you clearly! PERHAPS YOU COULD REPEAT YOURSELF."

"Sorry, wicked sister, your fishy excellency," he says; it sounds like a sneer, and your gills go dry. "You ain't got it like that other ho."

S)(IT ON A STICK.

"We will have to see about that, WON'T WE," you say, and you wish you could afford to ram your trident right down his throat.

\------------

When you were four you read your first piece of official contraband history about the Condesce, when you went looking for the details of all the princesses that came before you, the ones that shared your lusus.

Your mom told you they hadn't been as dear to her as you had been, as _she_ had been; they'd been scared of her, or unwilling to mind her and feed her properly. It's a lot of work. Somedays you think about not doing it, and leaving her down there to work off what you've given her for awhile, but that would be cruel. And so Eridan drags you whatever he can find, and you bring it down to her every night, and you promise her you will never let her go hungry as long as you live.

(Sweeps later as an Empress you are going to have an awful, terribubble problem figuring out what to feed her. You can't let Eridan hunt down lusii forever.)

The drones kindly provide you with a handbook: _What To Expect When You're Expecting To Be The Next Empress_. It doesn't tell you names or dates or how many others have died trying to do what you're determined to do. It doesn't tell you how long they lasted or what they tried to do to win; it doesn't tell you that there were any other aspiring Empresses before you, and if your mom hadn't mentioned it you never would have known. Did they think to do what you did? Or did they just want the power, and to not die?

(You don't learn about all the failed rebellions until a few perigees later, when you get fed up with Eridan droning on and on about history and decide to read it for yourself, which tells you that people have been thinking like you for thousands and thousands of sweeps before you were ever born, that this is terribly, terribly wrong, and you might have the power to change all that.)

_Upon arrival at nine sweeps and ascension to the Imperial fleet for deployment, the heiress is expected to proceed directly to formal challenge in full view of seadweller court. If combatant does not proceed to the designated place and time, they will be allowed a maximum of one sweep at the reigning Empress's discretion to continue to live before forfeiting their inheritance and consigning themselves to immediate execution upon retrieval._

Which would make it difficult for anyone to rebel. Even at four sweeps you knew nine sweeps was not a long time to plan something that would take down the entire empire, with nothing but a cohort of kids to rally to your side. Maybe if you got ALL OF T)(-----EM, but you knew that even you couldn't be persuasive enough to get all the jerks in the world who actually believed in this crap on your side.

 _Combatants may use standard Imperial trident as their weapon of choice and nothing else_.

Totally unfair! You were getting pretty good with your trident now and you'd be way better at nine sweeps but you wouldn't be good enough to take on an Empress who'd had thousands and thousands of sweeps to get good at killing people like you. Just because she was in power she got to make the rules, and all the rules were stacked in favor of her to make sure she never did anything but win. It was pretty clever, if you were her! But you weren't.

So you went looking through the banned records to see if you could find anyone who challenged her, if anyone had succeeded. Surely before her there was another Empress, surely at some point power had changed hands?

Her Imperious Condescension was the only Empress on record.

There were twelve.

You found the footage, and nothing else. Their names had been stricken from history. They had tyrian blood, just like you, and none of them lasted longer than five minutes.

Failures didn't deserve a legacy.

\------------

You will not be a failure.

You sit on the throne that you hate long after the night ends, alone in the dark, pacing the dais on which it sits. You drum your claws on the arms and pick at the gold and blood on the bones and swing your trident around just to feel the release of tension from your shoulders and muscles, just to expend that little energy. Everything will fall apart if you don't do something, and you know what that something should be.

You didn't want it to come to this. You never wanted it to come to this. But you were always afraid that it would happen anyway, despite your best intentions.

"Make an example of him!" Terezi told you, the night before. "You are well within precedent. And in my humble legal opinion even if you were not, you are the Empress! You can do what you want! You do not need me to tell you that it is just, and I would not presume to tell you so! But even if it were not, it would be your right."

And you know you only called her there just to hear someone say it, someone who isn't Eridan, who wanted to kill the bastard the first night you ever laid eyes on him. Someone with a cooler head than yours, maybe, because every time you see him you think of the supplies gone missing, the ships that dispatch and never return, gathering out in the wastes where they can be raised at a moment's notice. The orders that nearly cost Karkat his life, if Gamzee hadn't smashed the assassin's head in at the right moment. The skirmish that put Equius and Nepeta in the hospital. The bloody stains on your wall, where Aradia had to defend herself. 

She shouldn't have to defend herself like that. Not in _your_ Empire.

You know what you're going to do before you even let yourself think about it. When the first moon rises you call the court to order, noting the absences of defectors. Terezi and Gamzee will pursue them for you, as soon as you give the order. There will be no treason, in your Empire.

"Imperial Fleet Admiral Tarkin," you call to the heights. "Approach your Empress."

He smirks when he looks at you, and doesn't bother to hide his teeth. He thinks you are too kind, too naive, too _stupid_ to ever raise a hand against him. He thinks you trust him, because you let him think that.

When your trident plunges through his chest, it doesn't even register on his face until he coughs, and the blood slides out between his lips, bright orchid and dribbling down his chin. There's a collective gasp around the room; he tries to suck in a breath. You twist the trident deeper.

"Admiral Tarkin," you say, your voice loud and clear and cold, and you hear the echoes of your words ringing back to you from the high stone vault of the heart of your Empire. "If you are unhappy with my rule, that is fine! I would not have forced you to accept me." You might have let him leave alive. Once, once, that might have been true. Now, you are not so sure. Too many people moving in the dark, too many to let lie in peace. It is _your_ Empire, there should not be any other choice but you. "Instead, I would have declared you my enemy. And the price of being my enemy is- I collect your fucking head."

You wrench the trident free of his body, and let it fall to the floor. The blood drips onto the marble, and runs down the steps to your throne. Your second body. Your second lesson. Your first mistake.

The room is in uproar. People are running for the exits, standing frozen in their seats. With shock, you think, not with fear. Not yet.

"I have names," you shout to the room. "I know where you are going, and I know what you have done." The list is already in Terezi's hands; those among them who you know will never leave this ship alive. 

"You should have sided with me."

The room does not answer. Nor does the corpse on the floor. They don't have a choice, anymore.

\------------

_You'd said to her, when you looked at her body down at your feet, and raised her own trident to drive it through her skull-_

_But now the Empire is mine._


End file.
